Advanced wireless and optical technologies for small-cell mobile backhaul with dynamic software-defined management

TLDR

The article addresses the emerging challenges of small‑cell mobile backhaul by exploring novel wireless and optical technologies. The study evaluates 60 GHz and 70–80 GHz millimeter‑wave links, OFDMA passive optical networks, and a software‑defined backhaul resource manager to enable flexible, cost‑efficient hybrid backhaul coverage and dynamic resource provisioning. Hybrid millimeter‑wave/optical backhaul operation is validated through network simulations of an urban small‑cell scenario, and the backhaul resource manager performs capacity‑aware path computation for automated provisioning. These integrated wireless, optical, and software‑defined solutions have the potential to revolutionize future mobile backhaul networks.

Abstract

This article discusses novel wireless and optical technologies to address the radical new challenges of small cell mobile backhaul (MBH). Specifically, we examine 60 GHz and 70-80 GHz millimeter-wave technologies for high-capacity last mile and pre-aggregation backhaul, and orthogonal frequency-division multiple access passive optical networks as the optical technology complement for enabling flexible cost-efficient hybrid backhaul coverage. Flexible high-capacity hybrid millimeter wave/optical MBH network operation is next verified via network simulations in the context of a demanding, urban small-cell backhaul application. Finally, a novel software defined networking tool called the backhaul resource manager is introduced for automated dynamic resource provisioning and capacity-aware path computation that improves fairness, network utilization and end-to-end user quality of experience. The introduction of the novel wireless, optical, and software-defined technologies thus has the potential to truly revolutionize the future MBH network.